


The Levee Breaks

by PenrynPinesTheThird



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel & Vessel Interactions, Angst, Break down, Cas really needs a hug, Comforting Dean, Destiel - Freeform, Feels, Fluff and Angst, Fluffy Ending, M/M, Men of Letters Bunker, Mentions of Violence, Overwhelmed Castiel, Sad Castiel, bit of trauma, mentions of underage violence, pent up emotions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-08-10 14:44:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7849192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenrynPinesTheThird/pseuds/PenrynPinesTheThird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cas is confronted with a bunch of heavy pent up emotions that he doesn't quite know how to handle. When it all becomes too much after a fateful confrontation he doesn't know what to do, but thankfully there are some strong arms that can hold his pieces together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Levee Breaks

If Castiel had to describe his day in one word it would have to be…miserable. He had spent it chasing after leads to the whereabouts of an old angelic relic, that could possibly do a lot of damage in the wrong hands and had found that he was not the only one looking for it. Not just witches and demons and the likes but also various groups of angels. One group of three he had encountered had a member whose vessel could not have been older than thirteen. When he confronted the angel about that fact, she had simply answered: “It’s in her blood. She was destined for this”, a sentence that had turned his stomach for the rest of the afternoon while they were searching together. To Castiel’s immense surprise the group had actually agreed to team up rather than fight him (“At least for the moment”) but it all went to hell when they were ambushed by a large troupe of demons. Castiel had been pinned to a wall, fighting two demons when the angel in the young vessel had been practically ripped to shreds.

_It’s in her blood._

If he had eaten anything at all, Castiel was sure he would have puked it out again after that fight.

_Not older that thirteen_ , he thought while raising a shaking hand to his forehead.

_She was destined for this._

Cas squeezed his eyes shut. _No_ , he then thought. _Breathe, she doesn’t even look like her_. The girl, whose body the angel had occupied had dark hair and dark eyes and was at least from one side of her family of Asian origin. Castiel couldn’t help but wonder which side it had been, what the family had looked like, been like, before an angel had decided to take one of its members as a vessel. He took another shaking breath and gritted his teeth. _Don’t think about that_ , he told himself over and over again on his way back home to the bunker. He gripped his steering wheel harder and tried to swallow the thoughts and feelings of the day. That usually worked for him.

The ride home felt longer than ever before but when he did arrive, Castiel felt like at least for now he would be able to keep his composure. He entered the bunker and found Dean sitting at one of the library tables, doing research for another case he and Sam had dug up.

“Hey”, he said looking up from his papers when Cas came down the stairs, “any luck on that relic thing you’ve been looking for?”

Cas shook his head.

“I even teamed up with a group of angels that were willing to put their feelings towards me aside for the moment in favour of increasing our chances of success but we ran into a group of demons.”

“And?”, Dean asked. Castiel shook his head again.

“Huh. Sorry about that man.”

Cas nodded once. He considered telling Dean about the girl. He took a deep breath.

“There was this girl”, he began.

“A girl?”

Cas nodded again.

“Maybe thirteen years old.”

“What was a girl doing there?” Deans voice sounded like something between angry and worried.

“An angel was using her as a vessel”, Cas answered mournfully.

“Who would use a…”, Dean began but stopped mid-sentence, looking at Cas’ face. There was an awkward pause.

“Who would indeed?”, Cas murmured, leaning his head against the wall along with the rest of his body while looking down.

“No, come on that was different”, Dean said quickly, “You possessed her for like, what, five minutes? You didn’t actually drag her into war.”

“I did more than enough to ruin her life anyway and had her father not intervened I would have been just like that angel today.”

“But you’re not. Come on Cas, what happened today’s not your fault and that stuff from the past is in the past. You need to move on a bit, do what you can do now, not think that much about yesterday. Besides, Claire forgave you, didn’t she? You guys will be fine.”

Dean had stud up from his chair and walked over to Cas to take him by the shoulder. Castiel nodded once more, without looking Dean in the eyes and turned to make his way to his room. Bringing the subject up had been a bad idea.

He was able to take about three steps before he stopped in his tracks. Confusion swept over him as he felt something pull at his insides. It felt…very unpleasant. Something was snaking its way through his gut to his chest, constricting it and making it hard to breathe. Castiel didn’t understand what was going on. Was this a curse? His legs felt like led and on top of the constriction around his chest it felt like something was being drilled through his heart while his stomach was being clawed at with fiery fangs.

“Cas?”, he heard Dean ask behind him. He wanted to answer him, tell him he was fine and that he just needed some rest but no words would come out of his mouth. Swallowing itself, suddenly seemed very hard. Adding to the strange and more than unpleasant feelings and sensations, Cas was experiencing a rush of panic. What was happening to him!? He closed his eyes that had started to sting and burn and tried to breathe in and out to calm himself. His lungs felt heavy. His entire body did. Like there was an anchor tied to his torso, weighing him down. He heard Dean’s steps as he made his way to the angel to stand in front of him.

“Cas, you ok?”, he asked, worry in his voice.

“I…”, Cas began but couldn’t continue. Why did everything feel so immensely heavy? When Dean took him by the shoulder again, Cas felt as if a small bone he hadn’t known about in the centre of his body snapped. Something that connected everything within himself had broken and now there were pieces of Cas crumbling down beneath his skin. He took another deep breath, this one much shakier than the last ones.

“Hey…”, Dean said carefully. He sounded scared. Cas closed his eyes once more. Whatever was happening to him, he did not want Dean to see him like this. Dean didn’t have to be confronted with this tsunami of emotion. He didn’t deserve to face this just because Cas had to. Why should he have to? No. Cas needed to make his way out of the library before anything else could happen that would make Dean feel uncomfortable. But then he felt Deans hand on his face. It was a careful a soft touch but Cas felt his face crumble underneath it. Before he knew what he was doing, he grabbed Dean by his shirt and pulled him towards him, burying his face in Deans chest, letting out a choked sound.

“Whoa, hey, hey, it’s okay. Everything’s fine”, Dean said with a bit of panic in his voice. But he didn’t push Cas away. Instead, he put his arms around the angel’s shoulders and pulled him closer, trying to keep as many of the pieces together as he could. Cas let him. There wasn’t much else he could or wanted to do. He felt Dean’s arms tighten around him and was thankful for the pressure keeping the shattered pieces in place. He didn’t know how long they were standing together like this or how long he was babbling nonsense, trying to voice his confusion, his pain and his apologies for putting Dean in this situation or how long Dean told him that it was okay and that he was there. He just knew that at some point everything had become so heavy that they found themselves sitting on the floor, Cas shoulders still shaking and Deans arms still around them.

“Shhh, it’s alright Cas, it’s ok, I’m here”, Dean murmured softly. “Jeez, how long have you been holding this in, huh?”

“I-I don’t know”, Cas replied in a shaky voice, “D-don’t understand w-what’s happening.”

“It’s ok”, Dean said again and started swaying their bodies ever so slightly. After a few moments he spoke again.

“Cas, what have you been doing with all that stuff that we’ve been through? Mentally, I mean. What do you do with the memories and feelings?”

Cas furrowed his brow for a moment, trying to concentrate on the question and the answer.

“I-I put it away. I try not to think about it, leave it behind, like you said. Move on.”

“Just like that?”

Cas nodded slightly.

“And that works?” Dean sounded sceptic.

“M-Most of the time. Sometimes it…kind of comes back but then I just do my best to keep looking ahead.”

Dean let out a deep sigh.

“Cas, that doesn’t sound like you moved on. That sounds like you’ve been supressing this stuff. No wonder your dam broke like that. I’m surprised you held out this long. This must be years of material spilling out.”

“I-I’m s-sorry”, Cas let out in a weak voice, shaking heavier again.

“Don’t be! It’s not your fault Cas. Sam and I should have paid more attention. I’m sorry you carried all this around with you. Musta been hell for you…”

There was another moment of silence.

“How do you do it?”, Cas whispered. Dean let out a humourless laugh.

“I don’t, do I? I’m not exactly a role model when it comes to emotional confrontation. I mostly try to run from everything or distract myself. But even I can’t always hold it in and I don’t always have to. I’ve got Sam. I don’t like breaking down in front of him. Hell, I hate it more than anything but he’s there and he understands. I’m there for him too, he knows that. Friggin’ chick flick moments”, he added in grumble.

“We’re family. We’re there for each other, always have been. And you know what?”, Dean continued in a low conspiratorial voice, “Sam was kind of a cry-baby when he was little.”

At that, Cas let out a little huff.

“It’s true! Don’t remember how many times I had to hold him until the waterfall stopped. You should have seen him after _Bambi_!”

Cas let out a small laugh that turned into a hiccup. Dean chuckled a little while rubbing Cas’ back. Castiel closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh, still slightly embarrassed about his unexpected emotional outburst. When he heard the bunker door open he flinched and tried to move away from Dean but he held him tight.

“Hey, you guys ok?”, Sam asked in a worried voice, hurrying down the stairs.

“Levee broke”, Dean replied in a neutral voice while looking up to his brother, who let out a small  
“Oh” and walked over to their spot on the ground to kneel down at Cas other side.

“It’s fine Cas, it happens to all of us. It’s normal”, Sam said with a small smile and put his hand on the angel’s shoulder when he looked down in embarrassment again.

“Alright, com’ere!”, Dean said while lifting one of his arms from Cas’ shoulders to pull Sam in, who lost his balance and rammed into Cas, squeezing him between his and his brother’s body. They all let out a huff of air and a chuckle and Castiel found that even with the weight of both (over)grown men on him, he felt a lot lighter than before. There were still a few scratches around his insides, it would take time to deal with everything in a healthy way, but there was a small soft light inside him again that helped him put his pieces back together.  
*  
*  
They spent the rest of the evening in the kitchen, reminiscing on old stories from the Winchester’s childhood, with Dean teasing Sam about _Bambi_ and Sam teasing Dean in return with _The Lion King_.

“That was different!”, Dean protested. “There was a body and the music and all that! Gahh!” He turned away.

“He still doesn’t like that part”, Sam whispered to Cas with a smirk. Cas smiled back, happy about the company and the distraction.

And still, he found himself in a rather gloomy mood later that night again, after the brothers had gone to sleep and the bunker turned dark. He wandered the halls for a while until he felt a small gash on his heart again. Afraid he would break down again, he made his way to Dean’s bedroom, lingering in front of the door for a few seconds. Was this still ok? He took a deep breath a knocked carefully.

“Dean?”, he asked softly while peeking into the room.

Dean let out a small “hmpf” and lifted his head from the pillow, looking sleepily at Cas. They stared at each other for a moment before Dean moved a little to the side and lifted his covers.

“Com’ere”, he murmured and Cas didn’t waist another second being hesitant or embarrassed. The angel didn’t need to sleep but he knew that he would find more rest, physically and mentally, with the hunter’s arms around him. It was something he could definitely get used to.

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm not quite sure how many can relate (although I can imagine it to be quite a few) but let's just say I wrote this to cope a bit since my own Sam and Dean are sadly not around currently and it did help :)  
> Sorry about the feels and some minor deviations from usual character behaviorisms.  
> Hope you could enjoy ;)


End file.
